He defensed a medical marijuana trial – the first and probably the last in Mendocino County. The jury was out for all of an hour before coming back with a defense verdict.

As to the restaurants, Ed has yet to try an excellent Japanese place. Can’t think of the name, but it’s on one of the off streets a block or two south of the courthouse. Great atmosphere. Excellent food. I would probably rate it number one, although both Patrona’s and the Thai place on the main drag rate closely.

At Patrona’s I strongly recommend the Gorgonzola, walnuts, and fig pizza. And Ed is right about the wine choices.

The claim arises from the police killing of Christopher Burgess last summer. The Times Standard has the story. The claim was filed just before the six-month deadline for personal injury claims against a government entity. She is represented by David Dibble, a local attorney who is no lightweight.

These claims are routinely rejected. In fact, in my opinion the whole tort claims act is a bit of a fraud. Ostensibly it’s to allow government entities to attempt to settle the matter out of court. However, in my 12 years of practice I’ve filed probably about 50 of them and only once has an entity attempted to settle the matter prior to my filing a complaint. It’s really about shortening the statute of limitations for government entities and catching indecisive claimants unaware.

Once the government rejects the claim formally, the claimant has six months to file a lawsuit. I should mention that six months is not always adequate time to investigate a matter and sometimes we attorneys simply file the claim in order to buy another six months. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a lawsuit will be filed. The fact that it was filed at the last minute suggests the possibility that Ms. Burgess and her attorney have not yet decided whether to file. These cases are very tough, and you need to have your ducks lined up pretty well before tossing it into “delay-reduction” hastened discovery processes.

The officer who killed Burgess has been cleared by all of the appropriate agencies in terms of criminal charges, including Gallegos’ office. But the civil court standard of proof is also considerably lower than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard which governs criminal cases.

In this artist’s conception courtesy of our own Karen Wehrstein (Much greater resolution here) the sun would never move as seen from the surface of a tidally locked world, but the sky is an ever-changing show greater than any on earth. Observational data and theoretical models suggest that stars like Gliese 581 might have a dynamic, granular surface and sport enormous starspots. It could be engulfed in perpetual solar storms, seen here as faint plasma arcs and visible surface flares. The star is shown as it might appear above a hypothetical waterworld’s horizon from just sunward of the terminator, distorted and dimmed through a blanket of CO2 five times thicker than our own atmosphere. With less than 7 million miles separating star and planet, Gliese’s solar wind easily plows through the planet’s (presumed) weak magnetic field and slams into the upper atmosphere to produce brilliant displays. Shimmering cascades of what on earth might be called colorful sprites, blue jets, and dazzling aurora mingle so completely with high, wispy clouds as to be virtually indistinguishable. Fat cumulous clouds hang low over the water eerily backlit by the brooding red-dwarf. One lone iceberg represents the assumed many which calve off from the great unseen ice-sheet dominating the planet’s dark side and drift slowly to their eventual destruction on global currents through a deep, planetary ocean of carbonated water. High overhead the barest hint of shorter wavelengths are scattered by the thick air, coloring the zenith a deep twilight blue. Could life evolve in such an alien environment?

Well, if there is a god or “intelligent design,” then how could such beauty be wasted on the absence of life? And why is the red dwarf “brooding?” If nobody’s there, maybe it can be developed for vacation rental space.

Why can’t Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or his proxies explain their opposition to high-speed rail? They try, as they must. After all, this is a green project lauded across the ideological spectrum and around the world for its potential to prevent global warming, dirty air, and clogged freeways and airports.

But all the answers Arnold’s people give are illogical, unresponsive, or contradicted by the experts…
…

As I worked on my recent article on the topic, it was maddening to try to get a straight answer out of David Crane (the San Francisco venture capitalist that Schwarzenegger appointed to the CHSRA board) or the governor’s flacks.

He passed away this morning at the age of 51. He had been struggling with stage 4 cancer for some time. I didn’t know him all that well, but I worked with him a few times and heard his music on occasion. I worked with his wife Cher during my time on the CLMP board and he often attended events where I had some terrific political conversations with him. He is survived by Cher and a son (Trevor) and daughter (Asia).

Please feel free to post thoughts. If anybody has a photograph for me to post please send it.

Kimba took these photos in the early years of ROTR and has posted these photos over at the ROTR chat site. In the one below he’s playing with Rod Deal.
Below is a portrait by Georgia Long. The painting has been given to Cher. Thanks to Georgia for sending this to me this morning! You can enlarge all of these images by clicking on them.

The photo below was taken by Kimba. Ty’s with his wife and daughter. According to Kimba, his family was with him when he passed away in his home.

The photo below was posted on the ROTR chat site by a poster named “glass napkins.” The photo is from “The Clue.”

Second Addendum: Apparently the summary judgment code section link doesn’t work on it’s own. I’ve linked to the Cal government search page. Plug in “summary judgment” in the Code of Civil Procedure section and select section 437(c).

Correction: If I’d read the ER article I would have known that it was Tom Dimmick who filed the summary adjudication motion. I apologize for the error.

Third Addendum: A Times-Standard article on the upcoming planning commission meeting, containing a typo some may find mildly amusing. I wonder if I’ll get another missive from attorneys for linking to the article.